PayRun Sentinel
10/10
Demand Score
Payroll errors trigger fines, employee churn, and legal exposure; every bad run is costly and visible.
8/10
Blue Ocean
Competition Level
$1k-6k
Price/Month
Predicted customer spend
10 days
Time to MVP
Difficulty: Hard
The Problem
A payroll guardrail and simulator layer that sits atop your existing payroll module. It runs pre/post checks, auto-detects variances against prior periods, simulates gross-to-net for edge cases, and a
Competitor Landscape
- ADP SmartCompliance
- Greenshades
- Symmetry Tax Engine
- Papaya Global
Must-Have Features for MVP
Preflight checklists with hard/soft fails
Variance and anomaly detection vs. historical pay
Jurisdictional compliance packs with versioning
Shadow-run simulator with gross-to-net explainability
Retroactive adjustment recommendations
High-risk batch gating and approvals
Audit trails and exportable workpapers
Integrations: HRIS, timekeeping, benefits, GL
⚠️ Potential Challenges
- Keeping multi-jurisdiction tax/benefit rules current
- Edge cases across hourly, salary, union, and expatriate workers
- Data privacy (PII) handling and SOC2 requirements
- Coordinating with HRIS/time systems for accurate inputs
Risk Level: High
🎯 Keys to Success
- >90% reduction in post-run corrections within 2 cycles
- Zero compliance penalties attributable to configuration or calc errors
- <1 hour to investigate any pay variance with full explainability
- Time-to-close payroll reduced by 30–50%
Ready to Build This?
This hard-difficulty project could be your next micro-SaaS success.